


be unbroken or be brave again

by zanthetran



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13 gets to wash her hair, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, a bit of angst, sort of established thasmin it's implied ok, traumatized 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27898651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanthetran/pseuds/zanthetran
Summary: It’s after the daleks. After the Doctor blows up Gallifrey and after almost a year of searching and after Yaz loses everything (including herself) trying to get her back.or13 gets to take a shower and wash her hair (thank god) and /rest/ because that’s what she deserves.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 116





	be unbroken or be brave again

**Author's Note:**

> right so. I wrote this all in one sitting cause im Sad. i was gonna say i hope this fic isn’t Big Wrong cause i’m writing it before revolution has even come out but yknow what idc i love them and i’m Sad.
> 
> title from: to noise making (sing) by hozier
> 
> GUYS there is a beautiful poem that was inspired by this fic please read it it made me cry: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923353

When they find her, she’s a lot worse for wear.

It’s after almost a year of searching and following leads and trying ( _ failing _ ) to get the tardis to do something,  _ anything.  _ After the nights she’d cried — screamed so loud her throat went raw. After the dalek invasion and subsequent ruin that followed. After Jack and Graham and Ryan and that  _ small, little room _ she’d been kept in, a raised platform in the middle with a crumpled blanket on it.

(The rock and the platform bed and the blanket and the marks practically covering every square inch of the walls. And Yaz had tried to count them — to figure out how long it had been for the Doctor — but no,  _ no.  _ She  _ can’t _ . She absolutely cannot not think of that while they were stretched for time as it was, because trying to break out of space prison is hard work.)

It’s after they get back to Earth, without the Doctor’s tardis but with the one she’d sent them home in months ago ( _ months,  _ for the humans, and who knows how long for the Doctor). And after Ryan and Graham leave and Jack takes his leave shortly after, wrapping his arms tight around the blonde who doesn’t even respond in kind, just lets them hang limp at her sides.

It’s after all that. All that’s happened. All that she’s been through, and they’ve been through, and she looks so  _ small  _ and  _ breakable, _ like she’s been fully broken this time, with no hope of mending.

(Shattered glass can be fixed but it’s never the same — _not_ _really._ )

“Do you want a shower?” Yaz asks, because when she’s feeling bad she takes a shower. It’s one of the things she learned in therapy and she’d spent far too long under that scalding water as a teenager, trying to scrub the fog out of her skin like it was a rash. Washing off the day means another one can start and once the water goes down the drain, those problems aren’t her own anymore.

The Doctor nods but she doesn’t make any move towards the hall, and Yaz has been around enough traumatized people to know that pushing her (metaphorically) wouldn’t be all that helpful. Yaz nods her head towards the hall to their right that leads to a bedroom she’d found her first night in this tardis (the one she’s been sleeping in, since it’s closest to the console room and she basically doesn’t leave the console room unless she needs to eat or sleep — which she rarely does).

“I can get you some clothes, too. They won’t be the same but we can try and find you another coat, if y’like,” Yaz says conversationally. In training they’d taught her to not treat victims as victims, to be careful with her words but not enough that they feel ostracized. Her training hasn’t come in handy ever since she’d spent all her time trying to find the Doctor and subsequently been let go from the force, but maybe just this once it might. “I think I’ve got a pair of sweats. I can show you how to work the shower, it’s a bit finicky. She likes me, I think, but sometimes she switches the taps so I get blasted with cold water, which isn’t pleasant.”

The Doctor follows behind silently, so quiet it’s sort of eerie. Yaz wonders how much interaction she’d had in space prison — how much in the beginning did she keep her hope up that they’d find her and break her out, only to have that hope crushed as the days and weeks and months and years went by without a peep. She wonders if she’d tried escaping, if she’d said their names out loud at night, if she’d talked to the cells next to hers, or tried digging her way out with a plastic spoon, or tried —

Yaz pulls out a pair of sweats from the dresser drawer, then a t-shirt from the drawer above it. 

(About a month into living in this tardis she’d awoken to a dresser against the wall, and when she opened it it was full of clothes in her size. She took that as a sign that the tardis liked her.)

“Here, I can get you a towel too. It’s not the softest thing but I’m not one to complain when I’ve been living in a spaceship,” Yaz jokes. She pulls a towel from the hook on the wall and when she turns around, the Doctor is standing in the middle of the room, hands clasped in front of her and staring forward blankly. It scares her, to be honest. It’s such a practiced look, like she’s disconnected herself from her body completely.

“Do you want to brush your teeth?” Yaz asks, trying to bring her back with direct questions.

The Doctor’s eyes move slowly from where she stares at the wall and she nods after a few seconds. “Yeah, that would..” Her voice falters halfway through and she doesn’t finish the sentence.

Yaz nods. “Yeah, I can imagine it would be nice,” she finishes. “I’ve got an extra toothbrush. And the good toothpaste. The kind you ate that time you stayed at my flat.”

The mention of the memory doesn’t bring about a reaction and Yaz bites hard to the inside of her cheek to keep from  _ crying.  _ Seeing her like this — seeing her broken and bruised and  _ distant  _ makes her want to cry out, to beg for her Doctor back, but she’d never,  _ never,  _ be that selfish.

Yaz nods towards the bathroom door and walks in, assuming the Doctor will follow when she’s ready. She twists the nozzles and adjusts the setting so it’s not too hot as water shoots out from the showerhead in an erratic spurt before evening out. She hangs the towel on the hook next to the shower and moves around the Doctor to pull a toothbrush and toothpaste from the cabinet, setting both on the edge of the sink.

Yaz wipes her hands on her pants and looks at the door, at the floor, anywhere but the Doctor. “Right, I can just leave you to —”

A hand reaches out and wraps around her wrist to stop her from leaving and Yaz’s eyes shoot down, then follow it up the red jumpsuit and to the Doctor staring at her intently (with real  _ fear _ in her eyes, like she’s afraid if she’s left alone for a few minutes she’ll be left alone forever).

The Doctor doesn’t say anything but she does chew on her bottom lip, and the shower is starting to fog up the small bathroom they’re in, but Yaz  _ get it.  _ She understands. She knows what it’s like to feel like you’re disappearing, to need something to hold on to, to ground you to Earth.

“I can stay,” Yaz offers and the Doctor nods ( _ god  _ her hair is dirty — it doesn’t even move when her head moves). “Okay, that’s fine. Do you want me to turn around while you get undressed?”

“It’s alright,” the Doctor says quietly. She drops Yaz’s wrist and moves her hands to the buttons of the red jumpsuit, eyes never leaving Yaz. It should be weird — it  _ would  _ be weird if they weren’t them and it hadn’t been so long since they’ve seen each other and if the situation was different. If Yaz hadn’t spent every waking minute of the last ten months tracking down leads and searching for her and finally,  _ finally  _ catching a break, a stroke of luck, a terrible takeover by the daleks (which led to Jack coming back) and breaking her out of that cell. If she hadn’t thought over every single touch, every comment, every time their eyes held contact for too long.

(And it’s dramatic, she knows it’s dramatic and needy and completely off putting, but she’s pretty sure her heart beats solely for this woman, and she’s become resigned to that fact over the past ten months.)

The jumpsuit is far too big, like they hadn’t had her size when she got there or they had a size for a man (maybe her, when she were a man), and her hands barely stick out the ends of the sleeves as she finishes unbuttoning the front and lets it fall to the floor.

It’s absolutely the least sexy thing Yaz has seen in her life, and yet her breath catches in her throat. She doesn’t let her eyes slip from hazel as the Doctor slides off her pants and kicks both to the side before stepping into the glass shower. The doors are opaque and Yaz can barely make out her nude form as she steps under the water and lets out a choked noise.

“Is it too hot? You can change it —”

“It’s not too hot.” Her voice is a little louder now but still almost drowned out by the sound of the shower. “Are you —” She stops like she doesn’t want to finish the question.

“I’m still here, don’t worry. Not plannin’ on goin’ anywhere,” Yaz says. “Can you see me through the glass?”

“Not really.” Her answers are short and succinct and almost painful to hear.

“Do you want to open the door so you can see me?” Yaz asks.

The door opens without an answer and the Doctor’s head comes into view. She peeks around and sees Yaz, then pulls her head back in like a child playing hide and seek. Yaz moves towards the wall opposite the sink so the Doctor can see her without having to look out of the shower.

“Sonya got a new job,” Yaz says. “She likes it, kind of.” She actually doesn’t know — she hasn’t talked to her sister in almost two weeks. After she’d lost her job she had moved into the tardis full time, making up some excuse to her parents that she’d gotten a flat (she still hasn’t told them about the job thing), she’d mostly stopped talking to everyone. Her mum calls sometimes, and Sonya texts her a bit, but other than that she’s been on her own. “She probably won’t stick with it for long, though. She just needs to get her feet under her and she’ll be good, but…” Yaz trails off when she looks up and lays her eyes on the Doctor.

She’s shaking, like physically shaking. Her whole body shakes like she’s cold but there’s steam coming from the water and her skin is red so she’s obviously not cold. Her eyes lock with Yaz’s and her jaw clenches and Yaz doesn’t even think about it when she peels her jacket off and steps through the open shower door.

Water sprays from the showerhead above and wets her clothes immediately but she doesn’t even notice, doesn’t even stop to  _ care  _ when she steps towards to the Doctor and pulls her close, arms wrapping around thin shoulders, palm flat against her spine. She shakes almost violently, like someone having a seizure as Yaz holds her tight.

“It’s alright,” Yaz says, because what else  _ can  _ she say? It’ll be alright? You’ll heal? Someday you won’t think about the years or centuries you spent in literal space prison while I lost almost everything trying to track you down? What is she supposed to say to someone who has been through more than she could ever imagine?

“I’m here,” she says. “I’m right here, right now.”

So, she holds her, shaking and wet with her arms pressed between their bodies like she’s still trying to protect herself, like she thinks something is going to hurt her here. And Yaz just lets her feel, lets the water soak her clothes down to the skin and wet her hair so her braid sticks to her neck. A nose presses against the base of her throat and hands clutch at the shirt stuck to Yaz’s skin and Yaz stays holding on.

They stand like that for a while — Yaz really isn’t sure how long — before the Doctor pulls back and looks down where their bodies are pressed together.

“Your clothes are wet,” she notes, like she’d just realized Yaz is still fully dressed, standing under the showerhead with her.

Yaz chuckles and it feels like the first breath of air in a  _ while  _ (ten months, she supposes). “Yeah, these jeans are gonna be a nightmare to get off later.”

“Sorry bout your clothes.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about them. Isn’t the worst thing these clothes have been through with you.”

They’re both quiet for a long few moments. The Doctor rubs the fabric between her finger and thumb and Yaz rubs slow circles with her hand over her lower back.

“Do you want to wash your hair? Think it’s practically stiff,” Yaz says, trying to joke but the Doctor’s face goes blank and hard and Yaz feels like hitting herself for reminding her of  _ why  _ it’s dirty,  _ where  _ she’s been for the past however long (did they let her shower?). “Here, turn around,” Yaz says, pulling away and nudging the Doctor’s hip with her hand.

The Doctor does as told but backs up until she’s still touching Yaz, making it a bit difficult for Yaz to pour shampoo onto her hand and rub it into her hair without getting soap suds all down the front of her clothes — and then she realizes she absolutely does not care about the clothes so she just ignores the soap and works on scratching her fingers against her scalp. The Doctor’s head falls back a little and Yaz almost gets soap in her mouth but again, she absolutely does not care because she has the  _ Doctor _ back, and things like clothes and soap in her mouth seem pretty insignificant around her. The Doctor rinses it out herself, still touching Yaz, and then leans back again for Yaz to repeat the process with the conditioner. It’s soothing, washing her hair as water beats down on her chest, turning the skin red, and Yaz is almost sad when the Doctor pulls away to turn around.

She’s got a loofa in her hand and Yaz pours soap on it and carefully runs it over her arm, over the top of her chest and down the other arm. Soap slides down over her breasts and Yaz runs the loofa over those too, then under her armpits and over her stomach. The Doctor holds onto her shoulders when Yaz kneels down and runs the loofa over her legs and feet, making sure to get every inch of skin. She turns around when prompted and Yaz is face to ass, but she doesn’t let herself think about  _ that  _ as she repeats the same motions over the backs of her legs, thighs, her back and neck, behind her ears.

When she’s done the Doctor is leaning with her forehead against the shower wall, water running down her back in big droplets. Soap suds slide down and circle the drain and Yaz thinks she might be able to see some of the weight resting on the blonde’s shoulders circling the drain as well.

She drops the loofa on the shower floor and places a palm against the Doctor’s back, feeling the deep breaths she takes and the slow double beat of her hearts — she’s here, she’s  _ alive. _ She’s breathing and whole (physically) and  _ alive.  _

( _ Fuck _ , Yaz feels like crying again, but out of relief this time.)

“Do you want to get out soon?”

The Doctor nods but when Yaz pulls away to step out of the shower, she reaches back and grabs her hip, pulling Yaz against her back again. It can’t be comfortable to have wet jeans pressed against your bare ass but the Doctor doesn’t seem to care, only tugging on Yaz’s arm to wrap it around her waist. Yaz lets herself be maneuvered however the Doctor needs and soon enough she’s practically draped over her back, both arms wrapped around her waist, her palm flat against sharp ribs. She rubs her thumbs in slow circles over wet skin and presses a kiss at the top of her spine before resting her cheek on her shoulder. It’s so intimate — so  _ much  _ — that Yaz feels her stomach twist, feels the moments and looks-that-are-too-long and unsaid words, the “ _ I’m not letting you go _ ”, wrap around them under the water, in this glass shower stall in a tardis that doesn’t belong to either of them.

And it’s fucked, the situation and what’s happened is all so,  _ so  _ fucked, but never in her wildest dreams (or nightmares that she sits up in bed after, panting hard and practically screaming her name) did she imagine she’d actually be here, with her,  _ alive. _

(It’s one thing to do the work of finding someone, to keep yourself distracted with denial so you don’t have to go through the healing process, and another entirely to accept that maybe,  _ just maybe,  _ you were on the right path all along.)

And there’s a lot that Yaz doesn’t know, that she will probably never know, but honestly she doesn’t care. She could live in blissful ignorance for the rest of her life and be happy about it (and truthfully, she doesn't know if she  _ wants  _ to know everything).

She doesn’t know how long they stay in the shower, really. It could be minutes, it could be hours. Her fingers are pruned by the time the Doctor straightens up from the wall and shuts the water off and the sudden lack of sound in the room is a stark contrast to the previous constant noise of the shower. Yaz reaches out of the shower and pulls the towel off the rack, handing it to the Doctor to wrap around herself.

Yaz’s clothes drip as she steps onto the wet bathroom floor and she carefully walks to the cabinet and pulls out another towel for herself. The Doctor stands next to her and Yaz hands her the toothbrush and toothpaste, moving around the small room and back into the shower stall so she can peel off her clothes. Her jeans hit the floor with a wet  _ slap  _ and she doesn’t even bother to hang them up (they’ll need to be washed anyways). Her shirt is just as soaked through and she makes quick work of peeling off her pants and bra, leaving those on the shower floor as well. Once she’s got the towel wrapped around herself she exits the stall to the Doctor brushing her teeth slowly, methodically, like she hasn’t done that in a while and is remembering the exact movements needed.

Yaz mops up the water on the bathroom floor with a towel and throws it in the laundry bin near the door, then moves around the Doctor to rummage through the cabinet for a hairbrush. She presents it with a raise of her brow and the Doctor nods silently. Yaz stands behind her and slowly brushes her hair, pulling gently when she comes across a knot or tangle. Her hair isn’t longer or shorter, but it’s more jagged, less of a clean cut than she usually has (Yaz doesn’t even want to imagine how they cut her hair in prison, or with what, or what they did to her to get her to stay still long enough to even finish the job).

Hair brushed, teeth brushed, and a bit of toothpaste squeezed onto her tongue (because she loves the taste and eats it like candy) and Yaz says, “I’ll go get your clothes, hold on.”

She’s not sure why she’s even attempting privacy considering she’d just held the Doctor, naked, in the shower for god knows how long, but she does. She’s going to bring her the clothes and let her change in the bathroom but when she turns back around, the Doctor is standing in the bathroom doorway. Yaz hands her the clothes and the Doctor drops the towel, looking down at the soft cotton in her hands like she hadn’t remembered fabric could be that soft. Yaz goes back to the dresser and pulls out a pair of sweats and a loose t-shirt for herself before dropping her own towel and getting changed. She doesn’t look up as she gets dressed but she can feel the Doctor’s eyes on her every so often, checking to make sure she’s still there.

Yaz’s muscles ache to the  _ bone.  _ She feels like she’s climbed a mountain and run a marathon and defeated a giant beast in one sitting and all she wants to do is climb into bed and sleep for approximately a year and a half (though she has a feeling that wouldn’t be nearly enough time).

“Do you want to sleep?” she asks.

The Doctor, now clad in a pair of Yaz’s old sweatpants and a t-shirt she’d stolen from Sonya years ago, looks over at the bed. Her eyes study the bunched up sheets and the blanket kicked off in the middle of the night when Yaz had a bad dream the last time she’d actually slept more than a half hour (could’ve been weeks ago, she has no idea), and she nods.

“I sleep on this side,” Yaz says, pointing to the side she usually tosses and turns for 4 hours a night on. The Doctor nods and slowly walks around to the other side of the bed before hesitantly reaching down to touch the sheets and press her hand into the mattress (like she’s testing to see if it’s a hard slab of rock —  _ god,  _ what if she thinks this is all a dream). Yaz pushes that thought to the back of her mind because she  _ cannot  _ let herself think about the Doctor waking from a dream where she’s saved only to see that cell, the marks on the walls, the hard rock underneath her and around her, the only window looking out at the stars.

The Doctor hesitates long enough that Yaz gets in the bed first, fixing the sheets and blanket and pulling them to the side for her. She kneels first, and when her knees don’t hit solid rock she wiggles around quickly to lay down, laying her head on the soft pillow with a sigh. Her eyes close and that’s that, Yaz thinks. She’s down for the count. Probably more exhausted than Yaz herself. But then she reaches over and tugs on Yaz’s waist until she gets the hint and scoots closer. The Doctor moves to rest her head on Yaz’s chest and her hand grips the t-shirt tight in her fist, her bare foot moving forward until it touches Yaz.

She lets out another sigh and presses a kiss underneath Yaz’s jaw, just once, right over the thrum of her pulse.

And the entire situation is so,  _ so _ fucked, but dear god she’s glad she never gave up on the Doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> as always follow me @zanthetran on tumblr <3


End file.
